


Research

by recrudescence



Category: Inception
Genre: F/M, Genderbending, Kink Meme, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-08
Updated: 2010-08-08
Packaged: 2017-10-10 23:56:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/105855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/recrudescence/pseuds/recrudescence
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eames goes undercover on a regular basis: man, woman, whatever the job requires.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Research

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by a kink meme prompt: _I want Eames in lipstick._ And lo, it was so.

Eames goes undercover on a regular basis: man, woman, whatever the job requires. Arthur once would have been too proud to express any interest in that on a level not dictated by professionalism, but now he's closer to Eames than he ever thought he would be, and he can.

"Do you like it?"

Arthur asks him this in the midst of a dream. Eames has just been a lithe, smoky-eyed nymph of a dancer, moving in ways Arthur never imagined Eames could move at all and effectively ensnaring the mark's attentions.

Eames quirks a smile at him. "It's a living."

"That wasn't an answer," Arthur points out later, after they've woken up and left for the night.

"Well spotted, Arthur." Eames pats him once on the shoulder, patronizingly, and hails a cab.

Of course, once they're both settled in the backseat and Arthur wants nothing more than to complete the drive to their hotel in peace, he opens his mouth again. "The question is, I think, do _you_ like it?"

"Not the time," warningly, straightening a shirt cuff, doing his best to induce muteness by the powers of concentration alone. It doesn't work.

"No, really, does it turn you on when I'm in a short skirt and fuck-me heels? There's no shame in that, you know. It _is_ the objective."

The cab driver is staring at them in the rearview mirror and the traffic light is resolutely, agonizingly red. Arthur glares at Eames, his hands tight on his briefcase and his teeth gritted. "Just stop talking. I mean it."

But Eames is having none of it. "I'd be more concerned if it _didn't_ turn you on, actually. Leaving aside the fact that you're not one for the ladies, generally speaking, but I do have ensembles for all types. Sort of a job requirement, that."

"I am too one for—" Christ, who _talks_ like that? _One for the ladies_. Are they in a fucking Noel Coward play? "How do you know what I'm _one for_ at all?"

"Darling," Eames clasps a hand over Arthur's tension-blanched knuckles and gazes at him soppily, for the cab driver's benefit, "please give me some credit every now and again."

When they pull up to the curb, Arthur tips exorbitantly. Eames holds the door open for him.

  


_   
_

\---

Arthur is beginning to wish he'd never asked. It took him eons to trust himself interacting with Eames outside of work at all, mostly due to Eames's tendency to take a mile for every inch given.

"It's not uncommon. Having a coworker whose purpose sometimes entails playing the role of a fantasy brought to life, one's bound to formulate some filthy thoughts. And I've teamed with some horrifically filthy people before."

Eames is stripped down to his boxers and lounging against the headboard, channel-surfing with one hand and sipping a glass of chardonnay with the other as if nothing's amiss. Arthur, who supposes he should thank his lucky stars that Eames doesn't consider him _horrific_ despite some of the remarks they've leveled at one another in the past, is sprawled crosswise in one of the oversized armchairs with his tie off and his eyes closed. The wine bottle is on the floor beside his shoes. When Eames is engrossed with some inane show, he quickly picks it up by the neck and takes a gulp.

"And did you have improper relations with any of these filthy people, too?"

"Only you, my dear. But I'm flattered you think so highly of me." He does, actually. Eames is brilliant at his work. Arthur is masterful at learning every aspect of a person's history, but Eames takes that information out of paper and pixels and _becomes_ it.

"Why are you still talking about this?" demands Arthur, because he can't very well come out and say that Eames's most recent incarnation is still locked in his memory, picking away at his pride with dainty crimson fingernails. He can't.

"You asked a question. An _interesting_ one, even. I assume if I answer you'll be encouraged to ask more now that you've finally let yourself do it." Eames turns off the television entirely and the room seems far more stark without _Jersey Shore_ in the background. The way he looks at Arthur is particularly unnerving. "Essentially, I'm waiting for you to admit it."

"What?"

"That you want to have your wicked way with me in the form or forms of your choice." Arthur gapes, then scowls. "You wouldn't be the first to say so," Eames continues calmly, setting his wineglass on the nightstand without bothering to locate a coaster. "The difference is, for you I just might allow it."

Arthur can honestly not think of a single solitary thing to say to that.

Eames pads across the room, confiscating the rest of the chardonnay and bending to kiss him on one too-warm cheek. "Now will you please stop self-flagellating and come to bed? Your stubbornness is exhausting."

  


\---

"It's very simple, at least to me."

"What is?"

"Forging." Eames yawns. "I can tell you want to ask, but you won't let yourself. Sometimes I think you must lead a very repressed life."

Which is really saying something, considering Arthur is staring over Eames's shoulder at before-and-after photos proving that, yes, their current target's mistress has indeed had breast implants. _Quality_ ones, in Eames's opinion. Arthur takes a sip of coffee and passes the thermos to him. "Do I."

When it comes to his methods, Eames is typically one to show rather than tell and Arthur is a bit bemused by the change. "You have to know every small thing for it to come across as realistic. If you want to transform into someone's wife, for example, it must be a _believable_ wife. Does she have gray eyes or green, crooked teeth, an accent, a tattoo, a mole on her left shoulder or her right, and so on and so forth." He chuckles. "I once wore the wrong brand of lingerie and it damn near cost us the entire venture."

They've all seen Eames's seductions work their magic, but Arthur's eyes still glaze over despite the caffeine dominating his bloodstream. "Lingerie."

"I can't abide bras so I try not to bother with them. Of course, if a dreamer wants to change me, I have no choice but to change."

"Can't abide..."

Eames stops riffling papers and looks up at him with a put-upon sigh. "Are you even listening to me or are you just going to repeat everything I say?"

"Excuse me if I wasn't aware you had such deep-seated issues with—" he's about to say cross-dressing, but that simplifies Eames's work to an almost insulting extent, "with accessorizing." That isn't much better.

"A deep and abiding aversion rooted in the time I stole one of my sister's and tried it on every now and again to figure out if it was anything but a torture device. Awful things. I really only wear them if they're there to be enticing and possibly taken off."

"_What_?"

"For fuck's sake, didn't you ever play dress-up when you were young? You _were_ young once, weren't you?"

"I didn't realize..."

"I'm so sorry, Arthur, I thought you knew." Eames tilts his head back and smiles slightly, not unkindly. "My job requires research, too."

  


\---

  
"Who shall I be for you?" Eames inquires innocently, still every inch himself. He's already asked Arthur if they're seriously in a fucking library and if this is really the kind of place for sexual depravity and why in the world Arthur can't dream himself into something a little less formal every once in a blue moon, but this time Arthur actually deigns to answer him.

"The dancer," Arthur replies immediately. It's his dream, but he's still anxious, still torn between denial and curiosity. Part of him, mostly the lower half, is desperate to know if Eames is really capable of moving that way or if it had just been the dream somehow clouding his perceptions.

"Whatever you say," Eames replies, already transformed.

"No," says Arthur. "Keep your voice."

And he does: the girl's octave drops to a low, but still distinctly female, register and her words are rich and full with Eames's droll wit and urbane accent. "Whatever you say."

His breath spikes in, his skin ripples into gooseflesh, and the girl smiles at him with lips painted redder than Eames's but just as inviting. And Arthur, who once used Ariadne's naïvete to his advantage in order to steal a kiss, hears himself asking, "Is it okay if I...?"

"I'm afraid I'm saving myself," Eames purrs demurely, and then rolls his eyes. "Christ, what in the hell do you think I'm here for?" Bare, slim arms wind around Arthur's neck and there's not a trace of wryness in that new voice when Eames says, "I'm yours to command. Step it up."

He does. Eames's mouth is hot, tongue sweeping wetly against his own, and Arthur's hands are clammy against the girl's slender silk-clad waist. "_Hush_," Eames whispers, even though he hasn't said a word, and the girl slips her fingers through his hair, easing their mouths together more tenderly this time.

This forge—or _ensemble_, as Eames says—is flawless. Willowy and graceful, gently waving dark hair, nipples faintly discernible through the clinging cloth of her dress, which is long-skirted and bare in the back. Far more than she had been wearing the first time she appeared, in that CFO's dream, but this is Arthur's mind and he prefers for there to be more left to the imagination.

Nipping at his bottom lip, Eames peppering little kisses down to his collarbone, giggling—_giggling_, and somehow instead of being jarring it just has Arthur's cock flushing full, pushing against the front of his slacks. His hands seek purchase on the too-frictionless fabric over Eames's hips and Eames obligingly slants them against him, hard.

The two of them go sinking onto a plush sofa that happens to be there, and it's Eames but it isn't and Arthur is drunk on the dream and the wine he's dreamed up for them and the way that lipsticked mouth purses against his nipple when Eames undoes his shirt and squirms into his lap with a pleased little sigh. She's _small_, delicate and restless as a flame, and his hands seem to eat up almost her entire back when he splays them there, but the look in those wide green eyes is entirely Eames.

When the sprawling library turns to a sprawling bedroom and he still wants to undress Eames instead of strangle him—Eames has been true to character, not once getting smug or needling him—Arthur doesn't know what to do with himself. He almost wishes Eames had somehow spoiled the moment and given him an excuse to call this off.

Fortunately, Eames is the best at what he does and part of what he does is calculated lewdness. Arthur has a hand on one smooth thigh, inching higher still under folds of soft black silk, and Eames has a hand kneading over Arthur's fly. Stripping Arthur of his shirt completely and lick-nipping her way up the side of his neck until his eyes slide closed. "How do you want it? Want to put it in me, hm? Think, darling, you've had me every way but this one." Breathy and sweet, palming his cock through his trousers and kissing him far too chastely to match the words she's just uttered.

The girl moves back, spine bare and brown, letting her face nuzzle against him like a cat, and Arthur can't manage to say anything at first. There 's no objective here but pleasure, Eames has no hidden agenda, no information he's trying to wangle out of him, and he wonders not for the first time how many practice runs it took Eames before he got it right. Surely no one seduces like a pro on the first try; it must have taken quite a bit of honing.

Heat goes licking up his middle.

His hand cards through that long hair, undoing the clasp at the back of her neck, and the top of the dress falls free. _Fuck_. Eames peers up at him expectantly through a stray curl. Hesitantly at first, Arthur lets himself touch, rolling the point of one dark nipple between his fingers. Sweat goes prickling over his body when Eames gasps as he kisses there.

"Arthur." It's so strange hearing his name this way. Eames's voice is strained, almost a whine. "Tell me."

Arthur mouths against the side of her neck, feeling her wriggle and utter a choked little moan. Small fingers work open the fastenings on his slacks, Eames's lips brush against the edge of his ear. "Shall I ride you? You know how much I like that," and Arthur draws his tongue along the underside of her breast, sucks a nipple into his mouth, scrapes lightly with his teeth. Eames shudders in his lap, but doesn't stop talking. "Or take me from behind, is that what you want? Maybe put your tongue in me, fuck me that way until I'm begging for your cock."

It's too much. _Eames_ is too much and he can't keep up. "I want—_yes_, but—_God_, Eames, I need to..."

"I love it when you make me beg for you, did you know that?" She kisses him, drawing out his cock and stroking tiny touches over the leaking tip. Arthur jolts, buries his face in her hair, and it smells like cardamom and Eames's aftershave. "Touch me...let me come for you, darling, please." Almost pleading, almost _grinding_ into his erection through the silk of her skirt, and Eames guides his hand under the dress where it's pooled around her hips.

There's underwear. _Panties_. Flimsy and black and _wet_. Eames swears and gasps when he slides a hand inside for a moment.

"No bra, but you like these, hm?"

"Research," whimpers Eames, and bites into his shoulder with straight white teeth as Arthur traces the heat of her cunt through the lace with one careful fingertip. "_Fuck_, darling, don't tease."

"I see."

He fucks her that way, slipping a finger inside all at once just to hear her shocked-startled gasp, just to feel the way that beautiful body _clenches_ for him, hips rocking and hands clutching. Trying to take more.

She's fucking _burning_ inside, tight and smooth and magnificently responsive when guides her onto her back, slipping the dress off her legs and his tongue over the heat of her clit. The world tips sideways each time Eames sighs and moans and writhes down onto him. The slickness of her cunt contracts around two of Arthur's fingers, and he draws them out and draws her onto his lap with far more coordination that he thought he had. He's losing himself, each time Eames sucks in a breath, spine bowing off the bedclothes, fingers clutching at Arthur's hair and shoulders, and it doesn't matter because Eames loses himself again and again but he always knows how to come back in the end. Eames, whose voice is reedy and desperate and saying things like _so close_ and _need you_ until she's shaking through her orgasm, finally silent and so wonderfully disarrayed.

And even then, Eames watches him through dark-blown eyes, curls wild against pink cheeks, with her hands on his shoulders and her legs around his waist and Arthur touching her everywhere he can. Palms roving up her back, down to the curve of her ass, around to cup her breasts, thumb the nipples, and when he comes he's holding onto Eames so hard he knows it can't be comfortable but he can't stop.

"You're amazing." He doesn't sound like himself at all, but that's only fitting.

Eames tightens around him again, smirking with pride when he groans. She's drawing errant patterns on Arthur's stomach with those red, red nails. Arthur doesn't stop her. "Indeed I am."

  


\---

"I suppose you'll want to do it again."

Eames's hair, his own again, is ruffled into a thousand tiny cowlicks against the pillow. Arthur threads a hand through it, the softness tickling between his fingers, and Eames squirms against him, bare back pressed to Arthur's chest. "I suppose I don't mind you too much when we're awake."

Eames rolls over and pokes him in the ribs. Arthur deftly shifts to straddle his hips and smirks down at him. "You still have lipstick on."

"Fuck."

And the next time Arthur blinks, the lipstick is still there but Eames is gone, the body beneath him is thinner and smaller and long, sex-mussed hair streams over the pillow. "Is that better?" Eames makes a show of stretching luxuriantly against the magically pristine sheets—Arthur's dream, Arthur's logic—and lets her thighs fall open as Arthur's hand coasts up her stomach to skim her breast.

Arthur shakes his head. "Come back." It's a strange feeling to kiss one person and open his eyes to another, and when he does, the only thing that hasn't changed is that red-stained mouth.

"Better?" Eames asks him again.

It sounds like an honest question instead of a rhetorical one. Arthur sinks down onto him, and when those strong arms wrap around him he feels like he could almost purr. "I don't mind it."

He pushes up onto one elbow, letting Eames suck his fingers when he touches them to the fullness of that warm-damp bottom lip. And he kisses him, again and again, and because this is his dream the color never fades. When he slides his fingers inside Eames this time, that pretty red mouth falls open around his name over and over.

He doesn't mind it, not by a long shot.

"It actually sort of suits you." Nodding decisively once he's draped half on top of Eames and his subconscious has changed the sheets a second time. "You have the mouth for it."

Eames harrumphs, but his arm tightens ever so slightly around Arthur's waist. "Everything suits me, love. That's what they pay me for."

  


\---

Later, when the PASIV is closed and the day is over, Arthur buys a few things.

It's simple once he forces himself not to be embarrassed, having made the purchase with Eames's size gleaned from his tailoring measurements. Arthur likes to keep records whenever possible, whenever it isn't life-threatening to keep them at all. He's hoping this won't be one of those times. Decadently precipitous as well as being decadent for entirely new reasons when he lets Eames lay eyes on the package for the first time.

Three pairs of silk briefs and a tube of lipstick.

Eames looks almost approving, which is bizarre and relieving at the same time. "I stand corrected. Maybe you aren't all that repressed."

Arthur lifts an eyebrow, his head whirling, and he asks. "Do you like it?"


End file.
